


Crush On Radio

by raisedbyhyenas



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:08:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5788108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisedbyhyenas/pseuds/raisedbyhyenas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kent Connolly has a crush, and the Survivor sticks his feet in his mouth a bunch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crush On Radio

 “I think it suits me,” Sam says airily, turning around to get another glimpse of himself. “What do you think?” he asks, still looking in the mirror.

“That sure is something else,” Kent says. Sam grins at him in the mirror, then spins so that the coat flares out around him dramatically (he practiced in the bathroom of Hubris Comics, making Piper critique his performance).

_“Evildoers, beware!”_ Sam says, mimicking the voice of the Shroud. He’s had practice -- Shaun had been a fussy baby, and Sam had more often than not been the one up late looking after him. He used to play old episodes of the Silver Shroud, half-asleep on the couch with Shaun in his lap, mumbling along with the radio to soothe his son. “ _The Silver Shroud has come to punish your misdeeds!_ ”

Kent is grinning ear to ear. “It’s perfect, honestly. Pretty as the posters!” Sam is still watching him out of the corner of his eye -- it’s nice to see Kent actually happy, for once. Sam has been visiting the ghoul on and off for a while now -- partially it’s nice to just shoot the shit with someone else who remembers Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica and comic books that aren’t Grognak, but partially it’s been because he feels bad for the guy. Kent is a decent guy, and it seems unfair to just leave him in this dingy back room forever. It’ll be nice to get him actually engaged with Goodneighbor.

“I’ve got the cards, too,” Sam says, pulling them out of the pocket -- they’re a little faded with age, but still recognizably the Shroud’s calling cards. “So, uh -- now that I’ve got all this, how does this work, exactly?”

“Well,” Kent says. He looks away for a second, fiddling with a pen. “I -- I was thinking,” he says hesitantly. Sam frowns -- is Kent going a little pink? If his skin weren’t so damaged, Sam would assume he was blushing, but he’s not even sure ghouls _can_ blush. “Well -- there could be a secret signal, whenever you needed to come back here to me -- to the Memory Den, that is, and I could fill you in on the next case.”

“Wouldn’t just telling me over the radio be quicker?” Sam asks, confused.

Kent looks a little taken aback. “Well… yes, but then the bad guys would also -- ” He cuts himself off. Taking a breath and squaring his shoulders, he pushes himself to his feet. Sam watches, confused, as Kent reaches out and straightens his scarf for him, his fingers lingering on the knot. “Yes. But if you came back here instead -- ”

He realizes with a start what’s going on. As much as they might look like the walking dead, ghouls are living, breathing human beings, albeit with a nasty skin condition. And for most living, breathing humans, once you get the basic biological necessities squared away, a good number of them are interested in --

“Wait,” he blurts out before manners and good sense can reassert themselves. “Are you _flirting_ with me?”

The second the words are out of his mouth, Sam is instantly and utterly mortified. Sure, his game may be two hundred years out of date, but _that_ was -- that wasn’t even good enough to be considered a rookie mistake. That was just _embarrassing_.

He also discovers that ghouls definitely can blush -- even through the damage, Kent’s skin flushes a dull mottled red. He jerks his hands back from Sam’s scarf as though he’s been burned. “No! No, I -- no, of course not,” he says, pulling the sleeves of his coat over his hands. “I wouldn’t -- I mean, of course I wouldn’t -- you’re right,” he says hastily, his words tripping over themselves as he turns to fiddle with the radio. “Over the radio is better, you’ll be able to respond more quickly!”

Sam’s stomach sinks as he watches Kent nervously flip the collar of his shirt up to hide his neck. He didn’t mean to embarrass the other man, he had just been surprised. Surprised, and rude, and now he’s clearly hurt Kent’s feelings.

Unsure of what to do, Sam hovers at the doorway for a moment. “Kent, I -- ” He stops. He’s not sure exactly what he means to say, or how to apologize without being even more rude. _I didn’t know ghouls were interested in sex_ may be accurate, but it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would fix the situation.

Kent turns and flashes him an unconvincing grin. He’s still huddled into his jacket, as much of his damaged flesh as possible tucked away where Sam can’t see it. “You should probably go,” he says. “Crime waits for no man.”

He’s so visibly uncomfortable that Sam decides it’s probably for the best to just leave. _This isn’t cowardly_ , he thinks to himself as he makes some rather hurried goodbyes. _This is just… polite_.

* * *

 

For once -- for _once_! -- Sam is having fun.

It strikes him as maybe a little fucked that he’s enjoying hunting down criminals and killing them. This much casual murder would have been unthinkable when he had crawled out of the vault just… Jesus, seven months ago? It’s discomfiting how easily he’s adjusted to this brave new world.

Still, though, the people he’s killing are bad people, and he always gives them a chance to back down, even though nobody ever seems to take it. Piper even gets into it as his trusty sidekick, even though Sam can practically hear her rolling her eyes whenever he does or says something too cheesy. It’s all great fun.

There’s only one thing that is still bothering Sam, and that’s what to do about Kent. He’s been avoiding Sam ever since Sam stuck his foot in his mouth. They’d been -- if not friends, exactly, then certainly friendly before, and Sam misses him. One night, in an act of desperation, Sam had stopped by the Memory Den on some flimsy excuse about chatting with Dr. Amari, but Kent stayed locked in his room, yelling “BUSY” through the door when Sam knocked.

Which, to be fair, Sam doesn’t really blame him. He’s been replaying it over and over in his head, and he really had made a spectacular horse’s ass of himself. Especially since the guy is a ghoul, he has to be aware of how he looks --

Sam has a sneaking suspicion that that thought is racist in and of itself. Ghoulist? Is there even a word for it? Plenty of wastelanders are openly contemptuous of ghouls, so he imagines there must be _a_ word for it. Or maybe it’s so common nobody has bothered to think up something pithy to call it? He’s no sociologist, he doesn’t really know how these things work.

Post-apocalyptic racism aside, it seems like most wastelanders find the idea of a human (which is a silly distinction, ghouls are humans too, but it seems meaningful to most people) kissing a ghoul unnatural. Which, in fairness, if someone had told Sam before the Great War that he would be considering kissing a walking corpse, he would have laughed in their face.

The thing is, though, Kent is -- he’s not unattractive. He’s actually -- well, _cute_ , to be honest. He’s maybe not the kind of guy Sam would have gone for, before the bombs fell -- but then again, Sam still hadn’t realized he liked men at all until just barely before the bombs fell, so maybe that isn’t a great metric.

His lips would be very dry, with not much give to them. It would be kind of nice, not having to navigate around someone else’s nose. Like other ghouls, he’s probably thin under all those clothes, the bones standing out sharply -- Sam wonders what the skin along Kent’s collarbones feels like. He wonders what the skin along his hip bones feels like.

Sam doesn’t like to think about real people when he gets himself off; it feels too familiar even with people he’s seeing, and outright invasive with anyone else. So when he’s touching himself in the dark, one hand over his mouth to keep from bothering his companion in the next room, he does his best to push away the idea of thin fingers on his cock and leathery skin under his fingers, and definitely doesn’t imagine what his name sounds like when it’s being murmured by a two hundred year old voice, rough with radiation damage and lust.

* * *

 

Sam feels like an idiot. Of course it would all fall apart. _Of course_ it would, just like every other halfway decent thing that’s happened in this horrible future he’s inherited through stupid bad luck. Now he’s standing in a basement, sweating through his clothes, trying to somehow bluster this out without getting himself, or Piper, or Kent, killed.

“Death has come for you… _and I am its Shroud_ ,” he manages. Despite his sweating hands and the acid taste of fear on the back of his tongue, his voice doesn’t shake.

There is a half second where he’s sure they’re all going to die -- then Sinjin’s men are fleeing in a panic, and Sinjin is turning towards Kent. Sam has gotten to be a pretty good shot in the last few months, and the bullet hits Sinjin squarely in the forehead; Kent makes a noise like he’s being choked, jerking away from the corpse as it slumps to the floor. Sam is already moving toward Kent before the body stops twitching.

He reaches out a hand to -- he’s not sure. Pull Kent to his feet, or maybe even just check to make sure he’s actually still there. “Shit, _fuck_ , Kent, are you -- ” and Kent jerks away from him, too. Sam freezes, then withdraws, ashamed. Instead Piper is the one who unties Kent and pulls him gently to his feet, wrapping him up in her coat. Sam trails after them, hands on his gun, watching for anything else that might try to attack them. He kicks Sinjin’s corpse once, hard, as they leave.

* * *

 

Sam spends the night laid across a couple of chairs in the front room of the Third Rail under Ham’s watchful eye. The second he gets a glimpse of Magnolia emerging from the makeshift sickroom downstairs he ducks under Ham’s arm and shoots down the stairs. “How is he?” he asks. “Is it… is he okay?” There’s a smear of blood on her arm that she hasn’t wiped away; Sam has to look away, swallowing hard.

“He’ll live,” Magnolia says. “He’s hurt bad, but he’ll live.”

“How bad?” Sam asks. The words stick on his tongue.

Magnolia sighs. “Broken fingers, shot in the leg. He has a concussion. And he hasn’t eaten since they took him. But he’ll live.”

Sam’s stomach hurts. He hovers there next to her for a moment, trying to screw up his courage enough to ask if he can see Kent. He tries, he really does, but guilt and shame stick his throat shut. Magnolia lets him sit there at the empty bar, nursing a few fingers of free scotch, until he feels well enough to leave. He heads straight for Sanctuary, wadding up the costume and jamming it into the bottom shelf of the cupboard and dumping spare armor out over it.

He resolves to spend some time away from Goodneighbor, which is depressingly easy -- there’s always something going wrong in the Commonwealth that only someone with copious free time and very little to lose can deal with. Abernathy Farm has been raided _again_ (“how is this still happening!” he yells to Piper as he smacks a raider in the face with the butt of his gun. “What’s so important about this place?”) and while he has no love for the Brotherhood, he doesn’t mind clearing feral ghouls out of whatever abandoned warehouse or subway tunnel they’re interested in this time.

Piper brings up Kent once, asking why Sam hasn’t been back to see him. Sam snaps at her so fiercely that she drops it and doesn’t mention him again.

Despite what an ass he’s been to Piper, Sam has been tracking the days, trying to figure out how Kent should be doing. At the two week mark Kent should be mostly okay again. Certainly in good enough shape to chat with a friend. He worries over it at night when he can’t sleep, which is most nights, which in retrospect may explain why he decides swooping in as the Silver Shroud would be a good idea. It was their thing, it was something they shared -- Kent should be pleased by it, right?

He swings by Publick Occurrences to get dressed and drop Piper off, despite her nearly tangible disapproval. As he’s about to head out, she clearly hits the end of her patience. “Blue -- ” she says, her expression pained. Sam scowls at her, but she presses on. “Look, I don’t know that this is a good idea. Maybe you should -- ”

“Thanks Piper, but I think I know what my friend will like!” he says hastily over the rest of her sentence. It sounds like something reasonable that will slow him down, and he’s afraid that if he stops to think he won’t actually go through with it. “Just -- wait here, okay?” he says, jamming the hat on his head as he swings the door open. “I’ll be back soon.” She shakes her head as he leaves, but doesn’t push it.

He has the entire walk to Goodneighbor to convince himself that he’s not doing something stupid, so by the time he reaches the Memory Den, he feels pretty confident this is going to work out. He ducks past Irma’s clearly disapproving look -- she doesn’t say anything, so he can keep running on momentum -- and knocks confidently on Kent’s door. This will be fine. He’s sure this is fine.

It’s not fine. Kent swings open the door, looking thinner and paler than usual, his coat and hat elsewhere, and freezes when he sees Sam. Sam pushes past him into the room, turning dramatically.

“ _My faithful friend, Rhett_ \-- ” is all he manages to get out before Kent is on his feet and right up in Sam’s face, glaring at him.

“Stop,” Kent says. “Just… _don’t_.”

Sam takes a startled step back. “I… Kent, I’m sorry, I just -- ”

“Just what, wanted to get in one more laugh?” Kent’s hands have balled into fists and he’s breathing hard. For a second, Sam is sure Kent is going to take a swing at him. Instead he takes another step forward, so Sam steps backwards again, his shoulders colliding with the wall. “That’s what you were doing, weren’t you? You and your friends, having a good laugh at poor, stupid, _useless_ Kent Connolly, obsessed with a _comic book_ \-- ”

Sam raises his hands defensively. “Kent, I didn’t -- I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says. “I really didn’t mean to upset you. Are you -- are you okay? Are you feeling better?” Belatedly, it occurs to him how little he thought this through -- Kent was _tortured_ over this stupid costume. Why the hell had he thought this, of all things, would cheer Kent up?

He must look like he’s telling the truth, or maybe Kent is just too tired to fight him. Either way, Kent’s shoulders droop as his hands unclench, and without saying a word he returns to his seat at the edge of the bed. Watching him bury his face in his hands, Sam kind of wishes he’d taken a swing at him instead. His stomach turns over when he sees the bandage still wrapped around one of Kent’s hands.

Sam shrugs off the coat, scarf, and hat, throwing them with more force than is strictly necessary into the corner, then sits down gingerly next to Kent, close enough to touch but not yet touching. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit earlier,” he says at last. “I wasn’t… I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

Kent sniffs. “I hoped you would,” he says, very quietly. His voice is always rough, but it’s rougher now.

Sam sighs. After a moment of indecision, he lays his hand hesitantly on Kent’s shoulder. When he isn’t immediately shrugged off, he begins to rub little circles into his back. “It was my fault,” Sam says. “I’m sorry, I… I should have known something was going to happen. I should have made sure you were safe. One of them actually told me I was in over my head, and I should have listened instead of -- this.”

They sit there in silence. The only sound is his hand moving across the fabric of Kent’s shirt. “It’s okay,” Kent says at last, his voice muffled by his hands. “It wasn’t your fault, it was mine.” He takes a sighs, then swipes a hand across his eyes. “I should have died.”

Sam freezes for a second, then goes back to rubbing his back. “What? No, no, that was -- that was all my fault, I was the one who fucked up, I should have expected something like Sinjin to happen -- ”

“No, not _back there_ ,” Kent interrupts. “I mean -- when the bombs fell. My husband -- ” He trails off, then shrugs. “He wouldn’t have wasted two hundred years on stupid children’s stories. He would have done… I don’t know. _Something_. Joined your Minutemen, probably. Saved children and puppies and been worth something.”

“You’ve done things,” Sam protests.

Kent snorts. “Like what? Waste two hundred years on a comic book, then almost get myself killed?”

“You’ve -- well, you kept Goodneighbor safe. Well, _safer_ ,” Sam amends, ticking each item off on his fingers. “Even the mayor thinks so. There are a bunch of kids who aren’t huffing jet, that’s not terrible. People listened to the Silver Shroud, even all the way in Diamond City, and they liked it. You ferreted out a dangerous crime boss. Plus,” he says, slinging an arm across Kent’s shoulders and giving him a quick squeeze. “ _I_ had fun.”  

Finally -- finally! -- Kent cracks a smile. “You did?” he says, turning slightly to smile at Sam.

Sam smiles back. “Yeah. I -- actually, my best friend, from before the war, she was the one who was really into all of this. We used to go to cons together, except she’d dress up as the Shroud, and -- don’t laugh, okay, but -- she’d make me do Grognak?”

It’s not exactly flattering, going into detail about your best friend making you pose in a loincloth for strangers while narrating his actions in her very best noir voiceover, but it seems to be making Kent feel better. By the end of the story, he’s uncurled from his miserable little shell and is leaning against Sam, just a little. Sam’s arm is slung casually around Kent’s shoulders, and Kent’s arm has slid around Sam’s waist. It’s nice.

And then Kent pulls away. “I… sorry,” he says. “Thanks for coming by. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“I shouldn’t have put you in danger,” Sam counters. “ _And_ I should have visited sooner.”

Kent shakes his head, giving Sam a watery smile. “No, I -- I shouldn’t have been -- this whole thing was stupid and I’m an idiot…”

“You’re not an idiot, you were trying to make this place less of a shithole.” Sam is getting the sense that it’s going to take drastic action to actually get through to Kent.

“Just -- keep the costume, you’ve more than earned it...” Sam tries to protest, but Kent just keeps talking over him. “...But you don’t have to worry, I won’t try to contact you again, and I won’t bother you anymore from now on -- ” Kent isn’t really getting the hint, and he’s not letting Sam get a word in edgewise, so Sam leans in and kisses him.

It’s not much of a kiss, to be honest. Sam misses and ends up squashing his lips onto the corner of the other man’s mouth -- still, the surprise of it is enough to shut Kent up.

Sam pulls back. Kent is staring at him with the expression of someone who has won a contest he wasn’t even aware he had entered, half-happy and half-confused. “I, uh -- actually, if you wouldn’t mind, I think I’d like it if you did,” Sam says. “Bother me, I mean. I mean, it’s not a bother, I’d like it if you’d -- ” He’s making a mess of this. “Aah, fuck this -- ”

He catches Kent’s face firmly between his hands and leans in to kiss him _properly_ this time. Kent’s skin is warm and dry under his hands. Sam runs his thumbs over his cheekbones, feeling the pitting along the edges of his eye sockets. It’s an odd feeling, but not an unpleasant one.

For a moment Kent is frozen; Sam’s stomach sinks. This was another bad idea and he’s going to make everything worse, _again_. Just as Sam is about to let go, make his apologies, and back off, Kent leans in and kisses him back, reaching up with one hand to catch at the collar of Sam’s jacket and resting the other lightly on one of his wrists.

They stay that way for several minutes, kissing chastely, only touching by those few points of contact. Kent is practically vibrating under his fingers, but he won’t… _do_ anything. And Sam doesn’t want to be the one to push the issue. He just… he wants to be sure.

An unpleasant thought occurs to him. “You’re not -- you’re not doing this because you _have_ to, right?” he asks, pulling backwards. Kent follows him, his eyes fluttering open in surprise. “I mean, this isn’t because I saved your life, right?”

“What?” Kent looks distracted. He’s running his fingers lightly along Sam’s collarbone and throat; Sam shivers as he hits a sensitive spot. “No, I -- I wanted to kiss you when I saw you in that costume,” he admits.

_Oh, good_ . “I guessed,” Sam says, catching Kent’s hand and kissing his knuckles. “You weren’t exactly subtle. _I_ wasn’t… exactly subtle.” It’s still embarrassing. “There wasn’t exactly a lot of subtlety.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to blame you,” Kent says quickly, pulling his hands away. “I -- well. I know this face is offputting even for people who grew up here, and you being a vaultie and all -- ” He trails off with a shrug, looking at pretty much anything except Sam.

That isn’t at all what Sam wanted, _but_ it’s also the equivalent of a giftwrapped invitation. Before Kent can protest or say something else self-deprecating, and before Sam can chicken out, Sam swings around and settles into his lap, one knee on the bed on either side of him. As he settles his weight against Kent, he notes with some smugness that Kent is already clearly responding to his physical presence. _Well_ , he thinks. _That explains whether or not ghouls still work like that_.

“That was really a stupid thing for me to say,” Sam admits. “I didn’t really think, I just opened my mouth.”

Kent’s fingertips skim across his hips. “What about now?” he asks, his voice tentative. “Are you thinking now?”

Sam shrugs, suddenly shy. It’s one thing to seduce someone; it’s another thing entirely to admit to having torrid fantasies about seducing someone for months. “I mean -- I’ve _been_ thinking,” he says. “For a month or two. Since you saw me in the costume, actually. I just -- well, I wasn’t sure if you’d reconsidered, or…” He trails off, awkwardly. He doesn’t really want to say, “or if I’d completely screwed up everything by being an ass”, but at some point he’s going to have to.

That train of thought is interrupted by Kent pulling him down and kissing him firmly on the mouth. _Well, then_! Sam puts his arms lightly around his shoulders, loose and comfortable, kissing him back. He nips the other man’s lips lightly, rolling his hips experimentally; he is rewarded by feeling Kent’s fingers tighten on his hipbones and a quick gasp against his lips.

Their kissing gets sloppier as Kent skims his fingers across Sam’s chest and stomach, over his shoulders, down his back. Sam shivers under his touch and reaches out to fumble with his tie, pulling the end through the knot and letting it slip out of his hands. “Here -- is this okay?” he asks, pushing Kent away long enough to actually get a look at what he’s doing. Kent’s eyes are half-closed; he smiles at Sam, warm and affectionate, running a thumb across Sam’s lower lip as Sam fiddles with the first button on his shirt, and Sam has to look away for a second and concentrate hard on what his fingers are doing as something warm and soft flutters in his chest.

“Okay,” Sam says again -- it’s taking more effort than he thought it would to get these damn button opened. Flipping the side the buttons are on is actually surprisingly confusing. _Well, good job, Sam_ , he thinks, fumbling the button entirely. _The first time you get laid in two hundred years, and you’re going to get cockblocked by a shirt._

“Here, let me -- ” Kent pushes his hands away and goes to work on the buttons himself. With a certain sense of relief, Sam slides one of his hands around the base of Kent’s skull and pulls him closer, while the other he slips under his shirt, running his fingers across the other man’s chest. Kent’s nipples are gone, burned off by radiation damage, but he makes a gratifyingly needy noise as Sam runs his thumb over where one should be.

“How’s that, is that okay?” Same keeps asking as he pushes Kent’s shirt off and runs his blunt fingernails down his chest. “Is that good, is that -- ”

“You can stop that, you know,” Kent says. It would be conversational if it weren’t for the way his breath hitches every time Sam’s hand dips into the waistband of his pants and the way his voice has gotten hoarser. “If it weren’t okay you’d know.”

“Well -- okay,” Sam says rather helplessly. “I’d still… well, I’d like to hear you say it. If that’s okay, I mean.” He kisses the side of Kent’s neck, licking and nipping experimentally at the scarred tissue there.

Kent hisses in response and tugs Sam’s shirt untucked, sliding his nails across Sam’s bare skin. Sam can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “yeah, that’s okay. If that’s what you want.” Sam nods against his neck before biting down quick and hard and grinding up against Kent. “Fuck! Fuck, okay, that’s… that’s not bad,” Kent manages, burying his face in Sam’s shoulder and catching at Sam’s hips hard enough Sam thinks he might bruise.

“Not bad?” Sam says in mock outrage as he shifts backwards, ignoring Kent’s little whine of protest, and snakes a hand down between their bodies, palming Kent’s erection. “Come on, ‘not bad’ -- that’s insulting. And hurtful,” he adds as Kent sighs and leans up to kiss his jaw, shifting his hips to rub against Sam’s hand. “And, uh…” Kent’s hands are working their way upwards from Sam’s knees, running over the soft material of Sam’s increasingly threadbare pair of nice trousers. He’s painfully hard and has been trying to ignore it, and this is making that significantly more difficult. “Not… um. If you could maybe do me a favor, and keep going,” he says. His voice cracks embarrassingly on the last word, but Kent obligingly runs his fingers lightly up the length of his cock through his pants, so he doesn’t mind that much when Kent laughs, just a little.

This is nice and all, but Sam has spent the last few months pointedly not thinking about something rather specific while jerking off; he’s gotten this far, he might as well keep going. “Here, just…” Sam stands up. Kent watches him, slightly glassy-eyed, his pupils blown wide. “Just…” He pushes on Kent’s shoulders, nerves making him more aggressive than he strictly means to be. Kent falls back onto his elbows, still watching Sam warily. Sam pushes Kent’s knees apart, shuffling until he’s kneeling on the ground in front of him. “I’m just -- is this okay?” he says again, running his hands up Kent’s inner thigh.

Kent flushes bright red. “Yeah, but -- ” he says. “Do me a favor, will you?”

Sam pulls his hands back into his lap. “Y-yeah, of course, have I, what is it?” he asks, the words tripping over themselves.

“Here, move for a second -- ” Sam gets up, puzzled. Kent stands, looking suddenly rather embarrassed, but clearly determined to do it anyway. He goes to the corner and rummages around for a second; when he turns around, he’s holding something in his hands and is blushing even darker than before. “Um, will you… wear the hat?” he asks, thrusting the item in question at Sam.

Sam takes it, turning it over in his hands. “That’s it?” he asks. Kent is practically wringing his hands and looking anywhere but at Sam.

“Well,” he hedges. “...Only the hat?”

Sam gapes at him for a second, then laughs. Apparently he’s not the only person who’s spent some time thinking about this. He sets the hat on his head at a jaunty angle, then catches Kent by the shoulders and drags him in for a sloppy kiss, grinding up against him. Still kissing, he pulls away enough to start unbuttoning his shirt.

Kent grins against his mouth and bites his lower lip surprisingly hard -- he yelps in surprise and nearly trips as Kent shoves him backwards toward the bed. They stumble down the length of the room, then Kent spins them around and sits down on the edge of the mattress, smiling up at Sam as Sam tugs his shirt off and starts on his pants. There’s a brief and embarrassing moment where he realizes he hasn’t actually taken his shoes off yet; he scowls melodramatically at Kent when he laughs.

Finally he’s properly undressed except for the hat. Midway through the undressing process Kent has stopped laughing at him and is watching him with frankly appreciative eyes, one hand idly stroking himself. Sam isn’t really used to feeling self-conscious about how he looks, but the way Kent is looking at him, like he’s the only thing worth looking at, makes him feel suddenly shy.

Sam clears his throat as he goes back to kneeling in front of Kent. He's painfully aware of his own erection and he can feel Kent’s eyes on it. “Um, anyway,” he says, “If you could just… well. I haven’t really done a whole lot of this,” he admits. “So, uh, if you could… well, just bear with me.”

Okay -- okay. So the last time he did this was a while ago, and he’s never seen a ghoul’s dick before, but -- well, no time like the present, right? And he knows what _he_ likes, so that’s as good a starting point as any.

He makes his way up Kent’s leg, planting gentle kisses against his skin. “That’s a good start,” Kent says, laughing breathlessly. He’s running his fingers through the hair at the base of Sam’s head with one hand, and the other is gripping the edge of the mattress. Once he gets to the juncture of Kent’s legs Sam nuzzles the skin there, giving the base of Kent’s cock an experimental lick. Kent’s fingers curl encouragingly in Sam’s hair and he makes a little half-strangled sound. _So far, so good_. He glances up at Kent’s face -- Kent is watching him under half-lidded eyes, biting his lower lip as Sam continues to experiment.

_Well, then_ . If he’s watching, Sam might as well give him a show. Bracing himself with one arm across Kent’s thigh and one hand on his hipbone, still looking him in the eye, Sam slides the head of Kent’s cock into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” Kent gasps, his eyes fluttering closed as his fingers scrabble desperately at the back of Sam’s head; Sam takes that as encouragement to continue.

He’s a little worried about gagging, so he shuffles around until he can wrap one hand around the base of Kent’s cock, the other rubbing slow circles on his hip. It takes a second to get everything coordinated, and he’s a little worried about how this is all coming across from Kent’s point of view, but Kent hasn’t actually complained yet. The texture is odd, but not unpleasant, he decides.

When he starts up again, working his hand in time with his mouth and tongue, Kent groans. “That’s… good,” he says, coming his fingers through Sam’s hair, knocking the hat askew. Sam winks at him and sucks down harder. “ _Really_ good,” Kent amends. “I -- aaaah, fuck, I’m sorry, I’m not -- that’s really distracting -- ”

Sam pulls himself off of Kent, licking the very tip of his cock as he goes. “Wait, that’s not what I wanted -- ” Kent says in startled surprise before Sam kisses him, sloppy and wet, letting go of the mattress to work at his cock with both hands. Kent keens against his mouth, pressing forward against Sam’s body -- Sam feels both a flood of affection and straight-up lust. He really wants Kent’s fingers on him, and really, _really_ wants to hear Kent’s voice.

He doesn’t really want to stop kissing, though. He keeps meaning to, and leaning back with every intent of going back to sucking Kent off, but Kent keeps either leaning forward against him or tugging him back each time -- at this rate, Sam is just going to tip over backwards and they’ll both end up on the floor. They’re objectively not very good kisses either, since Kent is apparently distracted enough to just be gasping against Sam’s mouth half of the time, but Sam is not about to complain about that, especially since one of Kent’s hands has found its way to Sam’s dick and is stroking him irregularly.

Kent finally comes up for air, pressing his forehead against Sam’s and gasping for breath. “I think I kind of like you, you know,” he says, his voice breathy.

Sam laughs and presses a light kiss against one cheekbone. “I think I might have noticed, to be honest,” he says. “I mean, it took some serious sleuthing skills -- don’t laugh at me!” He pouts, but he suspects the effect is somewhat ruined when Kent twists his wrist just so and Sam bites his lip with a little half-cut-off moan.

“Here, let me -- ” Kent says, running his hands down Sam’s body. His fingernails catch at a nipple and Sam hisses as a bolt of heat shoots straight from Kent’s fingers to his dick. The drag of ragged skin and exposed muscle is _really_ nice, and he wants it _so_ badly.

“Yes, _absolutely_ , just -- hold on a second,” Sam says, pulling Kent’s hands off of his chest and catching them both in his left hand. With his right, he pulls the Silver Shroud hat off and plops it on Kent, then leads Kent’s hands back to his head. He lets Kent push him, none too gently, back to his cock.

“That’s… you’re a natural at this,” Kent breathes hoarsely as Sam returns to the task at hand. “You’re really, very good. I… I thought about this pretty much every day for the last two months,” he confesses, his hands tangling through Sam’s hair. He is clearly trying very hard to keep his hips still and to not thrust into Sam’s mouth; Sam appreciates the courtesy, although he wonders what it would be like, letting Kent use him roughly. “Where you’d come swooping into my room and -- oh _fuck_ , do that again, god you’re gorgeous -- and swoop me off of my feet and throw me onto the bed and have your way with me. You and that pretty, pretty mouth -- ”

Sam stops for a second, licking the underside of the head of the cock as he goes. “Worth the wait?” Sam asks, running his thumb over Kent’s hipbone, feeling the ragged skin around the exposed edge of bone.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Kent says fervently, and Sam laughs and gets back to it, humming cheerfully as Kent gasps his name. He’s still trying his best to sing Sam’s praises, but he’s starting to get more and more incoherent -- the hand on his hair tightens to the point of pain as Kent gasps, “Sam, fuck, Sam, oh _Sam_ \-- ” and comes hard, gasping raggedly.

Sam swallows -- he’s not sure if it’s bitterer than he remembers or if this is some ghoul-specific thing -- and continues to lick very gently until Kent makes a noise and tugs at his shoulders. “Here, let me -- ” Kent says, then he presses their mouths together. Sam gasps against his lips as Kent reaches down and strokes his dick, and _oh fuck_ it’s exactly what he needs after trying to ignore it for so long -- the pressure is a little rough but right now that’s fine by him, and the drag of Kent’s skin is… Sam would probably be able to describe it better if he weren’t too busy burying his face in the side of Kent’s neck and moaning something half-coherent about it being good and for the love of god _don’t stop_. He thinks faintly of Irma and Dr. Amari outside and tries to keep quiet, but then Kent reaches up with one hand and rubs one rough thumb over his nipple and bites down hard on the skin just under his ear and that’s pretty much game over. Sam comes with a strangled groan that he is sure must be audible from outside the room, but he can’t really bring himself to care as he slumps bonelessly into Kent’s arms.

For a few moments he just stays there, half supporting himself on his knees and half leaning on Kent. Then he moves with a little wince of discomfort -- there’s cum smeared on his stomach and thighs and it’s rapidly getting sticky and cold. He cleans himself off with his discarded shirt as best he can, then hands it over to Kent as he crawls into bed -- he’s already getting sleepy.

It isn’t until he’s under the covers and Kent is pressed against his back, one arm slung over his chest, that he realizes he’s made some rather large assumptions. “Uh -- is it okay if I stay here tonight?” he asks.

Kent’s laugh is quiet but still rumbles through Sam’s body. “Yeah,” he says, his arm tightening a little around Sam. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Okay. Because I can go, if you want me to -- ”

Kent gropes around Sam’s face for a second before finding his mouth and pressing one cool dry palm over it. “I’m trying to sleep,” he tells Sam pointedly. “If you’re going to complain at least do it in the voice.”

“Okay,” Sam says, his voice muffled. There is no response. “...Are you already asleep?” he asks, prying the hand off of his mouth.

Kent groans and headbutts Sam gently. “Yes, I’m asleep,” he says, his voice cranky.

“Okay, good,” says Sam. “Alright, so you won’t be able to hear me when I do this then -- uh, _hail, citizen! Can The Shroud rest in your quarters tonight?”_

Kent laughs and tightens his grip on Sam. “Oh, Mr. Shroud,” he gasps in an imitation of one of the fainting damsels always being rescued on the show. “I-I _suppose_ if you’ve got nowhere better to go… although, of course,” he adds, snaking a hand down under the sheets and grabbing Sam’s ass. “There’ll be a price!”

Sam squawks in surprise and scrabbles away, turning to face Kent with a look of exaggerated distress on his face. “Hey, that -- hey!” he yelps. “Jesus, that -- I mean, _who knows what shadows lurk in the heart of man, especially unkind ones who lie about being asleep like Kent Connolly? The Shroud knows --_ mmph!” Kent is smaller than him, but being landed on and kissed with that much enthusiasm would knock the breath out of anybody. Which is fine by Sam -- this is the one of the few unambiguously nice things he’s had in this miserable wasteland so far, and he’s perfectly happy to hold onto it for as long as he can.


End file.
